Gentleness and Mercy

For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.      James 3: 16-17

Most of us strive for peacful lives; we do not aspire to “disorder and wickedness of every kind.” Here, James offers Christians a dire warning against envy and selfish ambition.  

Given our Puritan forbears, the idea of God as “gentle and willing to yield” may surprise us. My grandparents, raised at the end of the Victorian era, preached strict obedience and proper solemnity when it came to life and work and worship.  They were unfeignedly comfortable with the metaphor of God as Rock: immutable, permanent, stalwart. A mighty bulwark.... Right?

James suggests another perspective.  Think of God’s wisdom as poured out among us like streams of living water. It is the antithesis of rigidity.  James calls it “pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”  Think about it: God’s wisdom without a trace of partiality and hypocrisy? Oh, Lord, let it be so!  

How might our relationships with God and with each other change if we cast aside all the “thou shalt nots” and, instead approached life gently, kindly, willing to yield, and without partiality or hypocrisy? Oh Lord, let it be so!